Debate Live Blog 3: Overconfidence Edition

Ok. Last Debate Tonight. You know what to do. The comments section awaits.

I Bet All the People Booing Got Canvassed by Us in Bucks County

So, Philly is awesome. Flyers fans boo Sarah Palin.

Debate Live Blog: Kitchen Sink Edition

So everyone is convinced that both Obama and McCain will be "throwing the kitchen sink" at the other tonight! This has always seemed weird to me, because kitchen sinks are not particularly throwable in my experience. But I digress. The comments section awaits your snarkery.

Men for Palin (Version 2)

Check it out!! And in case you missed it, here is version one:

VP Debate Liveblog!!

Bring your laptops and bowls of Moose stew down to Thayer Common Room to watch the Debate! For those of you who dare to venture down, the comments section awaits... UPDATE: Men For Palin: A Summer Surprise

Move over Jeremiah!!

Palin shows up at about 7:00. Although, judging people based on their preacher is pretty dumb, this is too ridiculous to not raise some eyebrows. This dude is actually more insane than Jeremiah Wright. You hear what he is saying about Jewish people? Damn. He likes us even less than Wright. It brings to mind the line from Tom Lehrer: "The Catholics hate the protestants, and the protestants hate the Catholics, and the muslims, hate the hindus, and everyone hates the Jews." Anyhow, this should help shore up the Bubbe vote in Florida. Shana Tova Barack Obama!! PS Though executive spiritual advisors might not like Jews so much, apparently the rest of America does!! Mark Penn, when not destroying Presidential campaigns, researches this, and apparently we even have less negatives than Methodists!!

Debate Liveblog!!

John McCain has gone into the phonebooth changed out of his cape and is quickly flying down to Oxford Mississippi for the debate!

The debate is about to begin!! Go to the comments section and blog away!

Gaffe or Good Policy?

In case you missed it here is Joe Biden's most recent "gaffe" in which he said clean coal is not a viable option.

This is the most sensible thing I have heard a politician say about this.

In fact, I think that the Wall Street Journal's critique of Obama's position on "clean coal" is spot on.

As for "clean coal," the Obama campaign actually supports it. But this too is a political bait-and-switch, perhaps explaining Mr. Biden's confusion. In theory, clean coal would require capturing greenhouse gas emissions, compressing them into liquid and then pumping it underneath the earth. Even if the technology were ready for commercial deployment tomorrow, to sequester just 25% of yearly U.S. CO2 emissions would mean moving volumes more than twice as large as the world's current oil pipeline system can handle. That will require an enormous amount of money, and generations to build.

Then, however, I quickly revert back to my usual disagreement with the WSJ editorial page.

That an eminence like Mr. Biden is clueless about coal suggests how little official Washington has thought through the consequences of its anticarbon agenda.

This is absolutely absurd. Washington isn't hasn't thought through the consequences of its anticarbon agenda? What about the consequences of the procarbon agenda? The WSJ's assertion that "The real costs of green ambitions won't be paid by well-heeled coastal liberals, but will fall disproportionately on the Southern and Midwestern states that depend on coal for jobs and power." does have some validity but when contrasted with challenge to our entire global civilization and way of life posed by the procarbon agenda, I'll take the anticarbon agenda any day of the week.

P.S. More Biden Hilarity on the rope line.

Hockey Moms Against Palin

Rep. Westmoreland is Stupid and the Internet is weird

So Rep. Lynn Westmoreland rose from congressional obscurity to fame this week for calling Barack Obama uppity. Eugene Robinson now reports that

A spokesman for the congressman said later that his boss didn’t realize that term has long been used to describe African Americans who don’t know their place. If so, he is the only born-and-bred Southerner alive who is so oblivious.

Wow.

But have no fear, Lynn Westmoreland is not only racist, he is also stupid. While pushing a bill to have the Ten Commandments posted in courthouses, Stephen Colbert asked him to name the Ten Commandments. He could not

And god bless you tube, for having this with German Translation and weird classical music playing in the background.

McCain's Brain

This is too funny to not post.

best line: "I think I am having a stroke."

What Exactly Does the VP Do?

Go to 2:50

Annals of Procrastination

Today, I would like to pay homage to Al Gore. Not for his environmental stand, although its awesome, but for inventing the internet.

But the internet is not only for porn! According to this article in the NYT magazine a couple months back it is actually the lack of porn that is what makes youtube so awesome.

One look at YouTube’s eccentric offerings, and I figured its days as a free-for-all “video-sharing site” were numbered. Sooner or later it would become a porn depot. But it did not. Chen and Hurley were committed to taking down videos that users objected to, and they maintained their own standards, too. Chief among the site’s assets, in fact, were top-secret pattern-recognition technologies that block porn uploads...By keeping obscenity in check, YouTube teems with video of near infinite variety, stuff that thrives when pornography, which is hard to contain once it takes root, has been banished. YouTube risked losing millions of viewers when it made rules against pornography. But it has gained radical variety, the kind that defines the most robust ecosystems.

So in the absence of infinite varieties of bizarro porn subgenres, youtube has become the site every other bizarre subgenre including my new favorite!

Real life enactments of free procrastination computer games!

First: Minesweeper

Favorite line:
"Soldier, why are you here?"
"Because I want to clear mines!"
"No, why are you really here?"
"Because, I'm bored"
"Good"

Second: Tetris

This is just weird. I am pretty disappointed, tetris definitely offers opportunities for much better drama.

Third: Frogger

I am speechless

P.S. Baracky II is out!!!!

P.P.S I am a big nerd and watch CSPAN at 3 am. But I happened to catch the replay of Dennis Kucinich's speech to the DNC last night and it was actually one of the best I have seen so far. It is only six minutes long, but it is a great concise explanation of what the Democratic Party should stand for.

Why are you a Democrat in 2008?

So the Democratic Convention is running this contest on YouTube for people to submit a 2 minute video answering the question "Why are you a Democrat in 2008?"

This contest and the question it asks raise some interesting questions.

First here is the entry we helped make for Congressman Sarbanes'(MD-03):

I think this is a pretty good answer and the theme of leadership is important.

But I think it is interesting that the question doesn't just ask "Why are you are Democrat?" but "Why are you a Democrat in 2008?"

Why? The recent history of the Republican Party and the graphic of Wal-Mart contributions at the bottom of Markus's post yesterday are two examples. We aren't old enough to remember, but back in the day, it was actually an intellectually defensible position to be a member of the Republican Party. It stood for small and good government at a time when the Democratic Party was stocked with bigoted Southern racists and corrupt machine politicians.

This has changed over the last 40 years but many older people who grew up with the old Republican Party. For example, take former Congresswoman Connie Morella, our well meaning but disingenuous Republican guest this spring. Her claim that "I never voted for Delay" because she and three other 3 moderates in the Republican Party meekly offered a sacrificial lamb to get crushed in the Republican caucus' vote for Majority Leeader? Give me a fucking break, Connie, you voted for him every day with the R next to your name. People like Morella stuck with the Republican Party well past the time when it was all too clear that their party was driving the country off a cliff.

Right now, the Democratic Party is the clear choice for us. But as Markus pointed out with his graph, it can always get away from its core values and current status as the pragmatic party. I hope that I will have the balls to jump ship if it ever drifts too far.

It would be sad sight to have a 75 year old Jarrett Zafran hobble into a meeting of the Harvard Republican Club in 2055 and seem as pathetically out of touch with the realities that a hypothetical ideological and corrupt Democratic Party had wrought as Connie Morella seemed when she tried to justify her 4 votes for Tom Delay and her support for the real ideological and corrupt Republican Party to the Harvard Dems in 2008.

So kudos to the DNC for adding "in 2008" to their question in the contest.

DRAFT MAHER 08!!

The Harvard Dems nearly had its first candidate to run while still a member in Mr. Andrew Gerard Maher '11. Mr. Maher, a devoted Democratic activist and upstanding member of the Bow, New Hampshire community, was asked by the state party to run for state representative in New Hampshire.

The filing deadline may have come and gone but the dream has not! New Hampshire needs change and there is only one 19 year old vertically challenged identical twin who can deliver it!

Many would say, how can a rising college sophomore be qualified to be a state representative? As his roommate the past year I can attest to his unique preparedness. Firstly, as I learned every friday morning when my Ec 10 PSet remained saddeningly hole riddles his facility with economics exceeds that of John McCain. Second, his New Hampshire accent, which he claims is nonexistent, is actually quite strong (for example he might say "I gawt some wicked snacks at Stawp and Shawp to eat while we watch the Sawx.") Thirdly, he does not smell bad and the Republican slate in Bow this year is particularly smelly.

Andrew, on behalf of the people of New Hampshire, I implore you to run! We need your leadership! If you ignore our calls you will end up like fellow draft dodger Al Gore, stroking your new found beard and belly.

Harvard Dems, lets Draft Maher! We raise the moneys and he raises the honeys!!

Should he need campaign ads, I offer this suggestion.

The Word of Wisdom is Dandy!!

Run, Andrew, Run!